Team Briefing

In small owner-managed businesses and start-ups, people often don’t mind pitching in and working hard. Issues like  whose job is it to? or which customers or markets are pretty clear. As for direction -  you work hard and long hours because every new customer and product sold is a win – you’ll take them all. Successes are pretty evident, and motivating – so you can sustain long hours and crazy schedules for some time without too much structure or the need for complicated systems. Things like communication can happen pretty easily.  Over time though, the need for a little more focus and specialisation becomes sensible if not inevitable.  Why?  Because we can’t be everywhere when we need to be; we can’t be good at everything and we can’t sustain the required attention and energy for prolonged periods of time because, quite simply – organisationally it gets too complex (if that isn’t a contradiction in terms!) and we’ll never have any more than 24 hours in a day.

There comes a stage in every growing organisation’s life when managers/owners need to start putting more structure around “how we do things around here”.  Becoming more effective and more efficient – more strategic and more focussed, more systematic and more skillful at these three things

1. doing the business  – manufacturing products, delivering services, fulfilling orders
2. managing the business – managing the money in and out; understanding profitability; directing, communicating with and training staff;  premises, suppliers, partners, the taxman etc.
3. getting the business – generating leads, bids, converting leads, getting repeat business, up-selling, cross-selling and securing contracts

Usually, we have a preference for one or at most two of these three areas and for many founders they love #1.  Getting the business suits some of us too – we can get immediate feedback for what we do in terms of orders, sales or wins – and that is gratifying.  It is in #2 that most small or new businesses fall down, in my opinion. It is harder to see the results of doing these things in terms that immediately hit the bottom line – and yet they can and they do.  I think the trouble with the activities in these roles is that you often cannot appreciate their value until they are not done – or not done well.  For example – if you don’t make your tax returns, you’ll still have to pay them and may well have a late payment penalty slapped on top.  If you don’t communicate effectively with customers and staff, you are relying on them to know what to do, when and how and this may not coincide with what you know is needed. Pretty soon you are going to have to resolve problems like duplicated effort, service failures, misdirections, rework – for the lack of clear instructions, or procedures.  You get the picture.

A long while ago now I was fortunate to meet a guy who introduced me to the work and philosophy of Ernesto Sirolli.  You can listen to what he has to say here:

Ernesto Sirolli Talks

I immediately was struck by the good sense of this charismatic Italian economic development specialist whose life work has been reviving communities, rejuvenating small business and leveraging networks and connections.  In many ways he was an inspiration for the direction I wanted to take Neontics in.  He understands that for many business owners and leaders, it is difficult to ask for help, that the help given is often not what they really need, and that changing how we work is hard.  It means giving up things we like do for things we sometimes must do.  It means entrusting things precious to us (our ideas, customers) and private to us (our fears, dreams and frailties).

Neontics can work with you in any one of these three areas of running a successful organisation to support individuals and teams who want to improve their business results.   Imagine what you can do with passionate people on your side, pulling in the same direction, achieving your and their goals.  And think about where you are now? Where is the gap?  Contact us to help you close the gap.

Formality – The Enemy of Innovation?

Lose Control

So how do organisations become agile and flexible enough to release their potential?  Arguably, it could be through their culture.  The answer may lie in enabling the opposite of what decades of management practice have encouraged – control.  As human beings we are programmed to look for form, create order from chaos, structure situations, define and even encourage engagement!

We dislike uncertainty, so we constantly look for patterns and meaning as a way of dealing with ambiguity. Hence in business we have come to regard building models, making correlations and measures as a way of bringing predictability to our work.  But these don’t always help us in turbulent times and it can be argued that they are the antithesis of the behaviour that gives rise to innovation.  In fact, models and obsessive measurement are often the hallmarks of the bureaucracies and behemoths that entrepreneurs spurn and successful start-up ventures reject.  New technology has led to disruption in many sectors, and means that change is happening at  a quickening pace.

It is people and not technology who have the capacity to innovate

In tough economic times, it could be said that a number of business functions, if not all, have a role in innovation.  However HR and marketing professionals tend to be much better at facilitating and managing planned change compared to opportunistic or the spontaneous kind of change needed when there is no time for detailed forecasting and planning.  Creating a culture that encourages communication of new ideas, releases new initiatives to happen quickly requires different, adaptive ways of thinking and working. Employees require freedom, opportunities, trust, encouragement and support to enable innovation. Furthermore they need to see evidence of it all around them in the attitudes and behaviours of managers and leaders throughout the organisation and a willingness to demonstrate and facilitate their intention to change.

For example, looking at examples of successful start-up organisations, or renowned innovative brands (e.g. Gore) it is clear that some working environments and conditions lend themselves much better to spontaneity and innovation than others.

Co-location in an open plan space contributes to ease of communication between key roles as do flatter structures that take out layers of decision making. Even the more relaxed conditions contributed by having a radio on may well stimulate the kind of conversations and ideas that spark different ways of thinking. Spaces and places to play around with ideas – writing or drawing on flip charts and whiteboards and whitewalls rather than the stiff rules that forbid posters, stickies on the paintwork, and working in virtual silence etc.

Rules send a clear signal  that order and image, individual achievement rather than collaboration, are more highly valued than spontaneity.  Without the right level of disorder ideas are stifled at birth rather than stimulated.

People and Culture

During the recession HR have come to the forefront of business strategy, in the process becoming adept at implementing strategies for survival.  Their innovation and evolution in areas like contracting – zero hours, temporary employment, outsourcing etc. have increased flexibility in the workplace. While they may not be popular with some employees or their representatives, they do also present opportunitiesand they may, in fact, offer a key to innovation.  Most shrewd organisations have not simply sought to reduce head count for easy, immediate savings. They have recognised and sought to retain vital knowledge, as well as potential, in their organisation. Innovation is not the sole preserve of either the longest serving or the newest recruit.  Innovation is about attitude, irrespective of time served, and a mix of valuable skills and knowledge, applied with fresh thinking. In a culture ‘unencumbered’ by history and add in experience and voila! You have a potentially powerful mix.

Innovation is often about right idea, right place, right time, right circumstances or any combination thereof.

Innovation Skills

Good facilitation, engagement and enabling skills are required to build a picture of what is required.  You need to build skills in questioning and listening, encouraging and leading new ways of thinking about solutions, rather than getting fixated by reductive ways of analysing problems and challenges.

Encouraging diversity and rewarding challenge and suggestions are behaviours recognised as good signs of true employee engagement.  Challenges after all are often signals that people care, and signs of potential solutions.  Actively seeking and listening to feedback and a willingness to experiment, take risks, test and measure impact are all behaviours and skills that can be trained and encouraged – or if they are missing, need to be recruited in to build innovation into a culture.

Neontics works with leaders, managers and their teams to introduce innovation to how they think and work to create a higher performance culture. Contact liz@eneontics.com for more details.